News Odisha

Following primitive practice to quench thirst!

Rayagada/Bhubaneswar: It could appear a shocking state of affair for all of who are privileged to live in cities, towns, semi-urban and developed villages. But, it’s a fact that people, mostly the dalits and tribals, in the backward districts of Odisha still follow the primitive practice to quench their thirst. Thanks to the failure of the successive governments in the state who dithered to wake up to the need of this urgent need of drinking water.

In several pockets, people are seen collecting water from contaminated sources like rivers, streams and ponds, putting their life into great risk.

The most worrying fact is that “over-exploitation” of natural sources of water often leads to their contamination, resulting in outbreak of diseases like diarrohea and cholera and subsequent death of large number of people, - almost every year.

Water conservation activists and social workers maintain that since most of the rivers in districts like Rayagada, Gajapati, Koraput, Nuapada, Kalahandi and Bolangir do not carry much water in later part of the winter and summer, - people dig chuha (parched well/ percolation pits) on the sand bed of the river to collect water.

“Women collecting water from parched well, ponds, natural nullahs running through farmlands and rivers is a common sight in the winter and summer in southern and western Odisha districts. Tribals living in villages located on hilltops walk down several kilometers to fetch water from such sources,” says Susanta Kumar Dalai, a social worker working in Niyamgiri hills in Kalahandi and Rayagada districts.

“We do not have any other option than collecting water from unhygienic parched wells, ponds and rivers from which are also equally thronged by wild and domestic animals. As a result, we suffer from various kinds of ailments,” says Raja Kadraka of Katraguda village under Bissam-Cuttack block in Rayagada district.

Kumuti Majhi, a tribal woman of Malipadar village under Sunger gram panchayat in Rayagada district, travels nearly 3 kms everyday to collect a bucket of water from a dug-well in the neighbouring village.

“Our village does not have any dug-well or tube-well. A few years ago, some people had come to our village to dig a well but they returned when we expressed our inability to meet their demand for chicken and other unwarranted things. Women folks of our village walk down to neighbouring village to collect water,” she adds.

Although the state government has built hundreds of overhead water tanks in many parts of the underdeveloped pockets in backward districts for supply of piped-water, most of them are lying unused or defunct due to lack of electricity.

To overcome this deficiency, the state government has started using new and adaptive technology to run the water-pumps used at these overhead water tanks.

According to Niranjan Sahoo, executive engineer of Rayagada district Rural Water Supply and Sanitation, - the administration has undertaken construction of Intake Well, Production Well, Spring Collection Well, Sanitary Well and Reinforced Cement Concrete Ring Well projects to draw water which will be supplied to villagers after due disinfection process. Most of such well are running on solar power to get rid of the electricity constraint.

“Apart from piped water supply through Intake Well and Production Well, we are also digging parched wells, sanitary wells and diverting waters from streams through adoption of new technologies. We adopt strong disinfection processes before allowing people to use water from them,” says Mr Sahoo.

Earlier in March, the state government admitted that piped water supply projects in around 2,000 villages and small habitations were lying defunct. Of them, 1,345 were identified non-repairable projects.

However, in between, the state government has set up 37,689 piped water supply projects out of the total 1,56,468 villages and other rural habitations.

Similarly, 4,15,558 tube-wells and sanitary wells have been set up to cater to the needs of the people.

Suryanarayan Panda, a social activist working for the tribals in Koraput, Malkangiri and Nabarangpur districts, - suggests that the government must start digging sanitary wells in a large-scale under the Mahatma Gandhi National Employment Guarantee Scheme before the coming year’s summer to ensure that the people do not fall prey to various diseases like diarrhoea and cholera after consuming water from contaminated rivers and ponds.

By A K SAHOO

20/11/2017

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